Angels Having Lost Their Wings
by Shade Embry
Summary: Even Mason can mourn. And he needs someone to see him through. Now completed.
1. Timeless

TITLE: Angels Having Lost Their Wings  
  
AUTHOR: Brittany "Thespis" Frederick  
  
E-MAIL: baltimorelt@yahoo.com  
  
RATING: PG for language  
  
CATEGORY: Angst, Vignette  
  
SPOILERS: 7:00-8:00 PM  
  
SUMMARY: Even Mason can mourn. And he needs someone to see him through.  
  
ORIGINAL CHARACTER BIO: Liz Rycoff is CTU's Chief of Technology. She is close friends with Jack and with George Mason, and has a political alliance with Mason, who wants her to go to work for him at District, but Liz's loyalty to Jack holds her back.  
  
RECOMMENDED LISTENING: "Everytime You Go" by The Devlins  
  
  
  
Liz had heard the news of the ordered assault not long ago, but she kept her feelings inside. She always had, as she was a professional who handled her trade like any reasonable justice administrator would. She simply kept busy, updating the latest information from wire reports coming off the phones. Tony was lending her a hand. Or he had been, until he'd stopped entirely.  
  
"Tony…" Liz prompted, looking at him. But he wasn't looking at her. He was looking up, then quickly back at her. "Liz," he said quietly, gesturing with his chin in the direction he had glanced. Liz followed his gesture. Piles of wire copy dropped from her hands onto the table as her eyes widened and her heart stopped but for a moment. "I'll be right back," she said brusquely to Tony, silently thanking him for what she had not seen.  
  
Mason was standing on the flight of stairs to Jack's office.  
  
He had obviously turned around from the previous minutes, looking ruinous and beaten. Appearances-wise, he didn't look too well at all, rather worn down and weary, but that was to be expected from someone having been up since midnight. But his eyes were the key. They spoke of limitless pain, frosted over with mist he was trying to hide, and she didn't know where he was. He spoke to her in a soft whisper, a broken tone.  
  
"Liz, can I see you for a minute?"  
  
But Liz was already crossing over, and as the whole of CTU watched them and wondered about what was playing out in front of their eyes, she climbed the few steps to join him, looking him in the eyes. It was more painful up close. "George," she whispered his name softly. Mason looked back at her, almost gone. He took her hand between the two of them, held it with a shaky one of his own. "Can we go inside?" he pleaded with her, and she nodded. Then they were gone, leaving everyone else to be struck by the magnitude of such small moments.  
  
Mason crossed to the couch in Jack's office and sat down hard, burying his head in his hands, forcing himself to take several deep breaths. Liz watched him as she entered, struck, saddened as she locked the office door behind her. She stood there undecided, then walked to his side, putting a friendly hand on his shoulder, listening to the disconsolate heartbeat.  
  
"Talk to me, George," she asked him quietly. "Tell me what happened."  
  
He looked at her with his intense, now turbulent eyes, seeming on the verge of tears. Still his voice was deathly quiet, with a quaver she could decipher. "You know what happened," he said as she reached to cover his hands with one of her own. "I've sent people to die today."  
  
"The assault." Liz nodded, the wound still new in her own heart. "You feel responsible for what might – what will happen to the team, to Jack."  
  
"I *am* responsible," he said, blinking away tears that threatened to leak out. She'd never seen him cry before, and she had thought he was past that, past his own emotions. But he was right here telling her she was wrong.  
  
"It wasn't your decision. It was Chappelle's and he's the one responsible for this," she said quietly, fighting down a surge of personal hatred toward Mason's boss. "He made you give the order, George. What more can you do?"  
  
"I could have stood up to the son of a bitch. I could have told him to shove his directives and I could have hung up the phone and maybe we would have half a chance of seeing Jack Bauer alive again." Mason breathed deeply. "I've done a lot of pathetic things as an administrator, Liz, a lot of things I regret. I used to be a better person once. What have I done now?"  
  
"Damn it, George." She bit down hard on her lip. "You're a good person. You're not an angel but none of us are. We've all done things we regret. What makes you different is that you're trying to stop yourself, you're trying to turn around. You were like Jack once, George. I know it, and I know you've come far from that but you can't leave the good person you were that far behind. It shows through the wall, you know."  
  
"And what good did that do Jack tonight?"  
  
"It's going to keep someone who can help him in control. You want Chappelle to send Alberta back down here or someone else, someone who doesn't give a damn, doesn't know what the hell is going on here?" Liz paused. "It won't matter what I say, will it, George?"  
  
"I wouldn't have asked if it didn't."  
  
"I can't forgive you, George. You don't need to be forgiven. I think Nina, Tony, I think we can see that. What matters is that we seize on what we have left." She stared at him for a moment. "You told Teri to stay strong, didn't you?"  
  
"Yeah. I suppose I lied."  
  
"Now you just have to learn to do it yourself," she said quietly. "That's all that matters."  
  
She embraced him then, the way she would always hug Jack when something went wrong with his missions, when he turned to her. She listened to the unsteadiness of his heart, his breath. Even this strongest of pillars was threatening to fall, she realized as they sat there. But she would not let it fall.  
  
"You're not falling on me, George," she whispered into his shoulder. "Not today. Not any day."  
  
-To Be Continued- 


	2. December Thoughts

Angels Having Lost Their Wings  
  
Segment Two  
  
RECOMMENDED LISTENING: "My December" by Linkin Park (quoted)  
  
  
  
Sitting there, looking at him, Liz felt something inside of her break. If one wanted to consider her as the sum of her influences, she was 96% of Jack Bauer, but there was that 4% that belonged to Mason. That part of her that was strangely conservative, collected, and cool. That part of her which was now falling apart.  
  
He took a deep breath, and she let him take a moment for his own, reflecting on how much it must say that he had gone to her and asked her for this sanctuary rather than anyone else, rather than being on his own. For some strange reason, she kept hearing a song that she had herself mourned to more than once, especially on the anniversaries of the deaths of her parents.  
  
*This is my December  
  
This is all so clear*  
  
She'd had that feeling before, hadn't she? When it had hit her point-blank in the face. That feeling had a name: Jamey Farrell. She'd never breathe another day in CTU Technology Section without feeling stabbed by that failure.  
  
"You're not alone in suffering, George," she heard herself saying. "I've been there today myself. I fell farther than I thought I could."  
  
*This is my December  
  
This is me alone*  
  
He looked at her, and when he said Jamey's name, she just nodded.  
  
She'd thought she was alone then, too. In fact, it was a statement she'd accused Mason of once. She was Jamey's boss, wasn't she then responsible for what Jamey did, for the breach in security, for Jamey's death even?  
  
"But you didn't see that coming," Mason said, breaking into her thoughts. "I saw this coming every step of the way."  
  
"So did I," she said, "in very painful hindsight."  
  
*And I just wish that I didn't feel  
  
Like there was something I missed*  
  
Liz rested her chin on her knuckles, thinking back to the moment she'd found out, how Nina and Tony – two people that were not her best friends but nonetheless allies – had broken the news knowing what it would do to her. Which it had promptly done.  
  
"I see the signs after the fact," she continued, "but by then it's already too late. All you can do," she said, looking at him, "is realize your mistakes, and attempt to rectify them. If they're even your mistakes."  
  
"Of course it was my mistake."  
  
"No, it was Chappelle's mistake, which you unwillingly executed." Liz exhaled. "The only thing we can do now is to try and be there for Jack and the others as much as we can, try to save them if we can. That's our rectification. But we have to start somewhere, don't we?"  
  
He didn't answer her.  
  
*And I take back all the things I said  
  
To make you feel like that*  
  
She had a guess as to what he was thinking of. What he had done to Nina (especially Nina), to Tony, to Teri, to everyone else. How could he possibly expect them to stand with him as one in an action against convention? That was what would be needed and he was thinking that he only had one ally.  
  
She had to prove him wrong.  
  
"Justice supercedes interest," she said quietly, repeating something she'd been taught somewhere. "We'll be right with you, George, and we will succeed."  
  
"Do you believe that yourself?"  
  
*This is me pretending  
  
This is all I need*  
  
"I have to believe it, George. I don't have a choice." Liz looked at him head-on now, analyzing the words, tones and gestures that had passed between them. "I will do whatever is necessary for the right thing to happen at the end of the day."  
  
"Do we even know what the right thing is?" he said. He was really questioning her. And in turn, questioning both of their beliefs.  
  
She paused. "I think we know inside ourselves. Which is why you're asking me to be here instead of turning tail and walking away when you damn well could."  
  
*And I give it all away  
  
To have someone to come home to*  
  
It hit her then, why he wanted her there, and it had nothing to do with strategics or statistics. He needed someone to be there in his life as a person, a confidante, and an ally.  
  
Mason was, if he stayed on, risking everything he'd accrued in his position with District, exposing his past sins as ammunition for Chappelle and anyone else. He was sacrificing himself, in a sense.  
  
And he didn't want to die alone.  
  
She looked at him. "You're not alone, George," she said. "That's why you asked me here, isn't it? Well, you're not alone. We're in this fight together. I need you fighting with me, I do."  
  
Silence in the room.  
  
*This is my December  
  
This is my time of the year*  
  
He crossed to the wall, looked down on CTU, and she went with him. In her mind, numbers turned. Numbers always had turned but no more so than now. They were both realizing that they were fast approaching zero and they had little time to make a difference.  
  
But in an essence, as Herman Boone had said, it was their time. They had a window of time and they had people who were smart and experienced. They had the facilities and the tenacity. It would be tough and painful, it would be agony, but if they cared, they would take the torture.  
  
What better time to defy everything? They could not wait. They had to go while they had the chance, before Chappelle or someone else shut them down. If they looked away now, their chances were gone.  
  
"George," she began.  
  
"I know," he said quietly. "We need to go now if we're going to go at all."  
  
*This is my December*  
  
"Are we going to go?" she asked him.  
  
He looked at her and the mist had cleared, replaced by an almost bitter, almost righteous clarity. "Of course we're going to go, Elisabeth. What did you expect?"  
  
She allowed herself to barely smile. "I don't know, sir."  
  
He'd signed his own death warrant, and probably more than that. But he was making a point. This time was their time, not Chappelle's or District's or anyone else's. It was their time and their ship, and it was going to be run as such.  
  
In the face of anything and the fear of God, it was theirs.  
  
*This is all so clear*  
  
"Get downstairs and work with Nina and Tony on a profile," he was telling her now, his voice reassuming its natural command. "We'll discuss in a few minutes."  
  
"Right." She started walking to the door, aware he was watching her, and stopped in the doorway like had become a nervous habit of hers. "George?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"I think you got your halo back."  
  
He actually smiled at her, and it took a heavy load off her heart that had been crushing all of her. "Maybe so," he said. "Despite the rust and the rain, I guess I've always been able to fly."  
  
"I know you have," she said, and walked out, leaving it at that.  
  
And Liz realized as she walked downstairs that she hadn't done anything to heal Mason. He'd taken care of himself.  
  
-End- 


End file.
